A New Book That Contains the Distilled Wisdom of
Many Traditions in Clear Simple Language
Set Out in 80 Principles from the World.

By Reynold Feldman, Ph.D. & and M. Jan Rumi, M.S.

Dear Friend,It's time to Wise Up! The world has become a stormy sea, and we are shipwrecked and adrift. Floating around in individual life vests with a little food and water will not spare us for long. We need a serviceable lifeboat stocked with provisions, warm clothing, and functioning navigation and communication equipment. We need the world's Wisdom to help us find our way home.

WisingUp is enlightening and insightful. . . . Another big plus is that it's an easy read. . . . I also like the way it encourages the reader to identify role models . . . to be[come] the best that he [or she] can be.
-Hanna Fernando, 21, Youth Leader, the Philippines

A collection of sayings from many cultures, WisingUp juxtaposes such suggestions as "Go for It!" with "Wait a Minute!" As a result, the reader finds support in the internal search for wisdom.
-Emilyn Inglis, 24, Oberlin Graduate, USA

A Global Village

cannot afford ideological ghettoes, where the "truths" of one group are in competition with all others. Right now, you want Truth, not truths, since you've seen the havoc that competing small truths can wreck on us and others.

I found this book a complete and useful guide for youth. Each of the principles is followed by a concise, easy-to-read explanation. I really recommend that every youth read this handbook. . . .
-Sokbunthoeun So, 24, Fulbright Scholar, Cambodia

Opposites attract. Nils Bohr, the atomic physicist, apparently said, "The opposite of truth is a lie. But the opposite of one great truth is another great truth." That's why in WisingUp: a Youth Guide to Good Living, you'll find lots of paradoxical advice: Go for it! and Wait a Minute! Attend to the Details and Get the Big Picture, Celebrate Commonalities and Celebrate Difference, Move It or Lose It and Take Your Time, Work and Play. Nature, they say, doesn't write in straight lines. So if someone wants to sell you the truth and it's all a straight line headed in one direction, think before you commit.

This book is amazing! I like how it's a little guide for young people, something that was made especially for us. I would recommend this book for all youth. Not only that, but it can also provide helpful reminders for adults.
-Hapistinna Grace Horne, 19,
Enrolled Member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate; Founder,Wolakota Youth Council, USA

We can get it for you wholesale!

If you order a copy of WisingUp before its publication, planned for July, 2004, we’ll give you 50% off the retail price of $21.97 US. Click here to reserve your Pre-Publication Copy. In fact, you can order as many as you like at that special price. Just give us the names of your friends and family, and we’ll send them copies from you as well.

This book is an extremely refreshing read, something every young person (and young at heart) should have the opportunity to go through, especially in this day and age. One realizes that what they read they already know, but with the world moving and changing so fast around us, sometimes it needs to be brought to the fore for us to remember.
-Vera Akatsa-Bukachi, 21, Kenya, National Representative to the World Congress of Youth, 2003, Morocco

So who are we anyway?

Good question. One of us is a Jewish-Christian from New York City with a Ph.D. in English from Yale and a completed career as a university professor, dean, and vice president. He’s been consulting and raising funds for nonprofits for the last dozen years while writing two books on wisdom.

The other is a Muslim from Bangladesh, a new country next to India. He came to the U.S. as a 19-year-old to study at Berea College in Kentucky. After that he got his M.S. in I.T. from Purdue University. Having worked for an international hospital-supply company in Saudi Arabia, he and his wife settled in Honolulu, where for the past decade and a half he’s been a management consultant for Grant Thornton International. Both of us are proud of our friendship and collaboration across all kinds of lines. Maybe that’s the wisdom we’d most like to see the world take to heart.

What is a truly good life? How do you live it? How do you ensure that you don’t arrive on your death-bed full of regrets, preoccupied with the “might-have-beens”? A good place to start looking for answers to these questions is Feldman and Rumi’s thin volume, WisingUp: A Youth Guide to Good Living. Its 80 instructions are a great digest of wisdom accumulated by all the world’s cultures and religions expressed in a simple, direct way that is accessible to young people—and everyone else as well!

- David Woollcombe, President, Peace Child International, England, sponsor of the World Congress of Youth

So what else are we into?

For starters we have this nonprofit company in Hawai`i, where we live. It's called Wisdom Factors International, and its goal is to help the whole world WiseUp. We are starting with youth, because that's where the action is. Face it. We're old one of us is almost 50 and the other over 60! But we've learned a few things along the way and want to share them with you. Our plan is to use the money we make over expenses to fund young people and youth organizations doing exciting things for the future of the world.

An eye-opening, carefully selected list of 80 principles for good living. This very special book is surely an investment worth making. A must for every young person to read.

-Piotr Umha, 24, Secretary General, Polish Youth Council

WisingUp Clubs.

Speaking of exciting things, we plan to start a world-wide network of WisingUp Clubs for youth. The purpose of these clubs will be to assist young people transform themselves and society in positive directions. The WisingUp book will play a key role here, since Club members will use the book together to develop their own human leadership potential. Other features will include local service projects, electronic pen-pal relationships with Club members in other parts of the world, and invitations to attend international meetings and conferences.

This book stimulates reflection, as wrapped in its pages are the treasures and hopes of a soon-to-come change. A wise man once told me, “Change is in our youth. Old habits never die, so fix the new ones. . . .” In my opinion, WisingUp can represent a step forward in this direction for humanity.

WisingUp Workshops.

We are setting up week-long workshops for peer youth leaders to train them to "teach the book" to their friends and others in their communities. The first workshop will be in July, 2004, in Honolulu. We also intend to have WisingUp translated into the major languages of the world. (The Chinese bilingual edition should be out in August, 2004.) If you're interested in becoming a peer-group leader or would simply like to say hi and share your reactions to WisingUp, you can reach us at Reynold@WisingUp.com or Jan@WisingUp.com.

This book presents a wonderful constellation of wisdom and acts as an insightful guide for youth in the world today to navigate the difficult choices facing them with energy, compassion, and confidence.